Thursday, August 1, 2013

Government, um, efficiency?

This is my real shocked face, not the sarcastic one.

A coworker recently applied for his Iowa Permit to Carry Weapons. He was allowed to use an online course, and apply online. His only personal contact was when they had him come down and get his photo taken and hand him his permit. Time from sending the application to actually getting the permit? 8 days. A reduction of around 22 days, from the anecdotal evidence of 8 people I personally asked who have permits in Polk County. It could be that the numbers of new permit holders are dropping, guess I will find out at renewal time.

Where I work, we have gone from 1 coworker with a permit* to over 50%** since shall issue passed two and a half years ago. Technically, the first coworker moved on to a different employer, so all of the growth has come from new holders. And it is possible others have them, just they don't broadcast it like the rest of us do. ;)

*Another employee was a reserve sheriff deputy in another county. He also left, to become a real deputy. I don't count him because of the Some Animals Are More Special Than Others laws. Not that he was a bad guy, on the contrary he was pretty cool.

** If you take out the FNG's from out of state we just hired, it is closer to 75%.